when did a loving woman ever believe a man otherwise?--too
noble, too great, too high, too good, she thinks, for her,--poor,
trivial, ignorant coquette,--poor, childish, trifling Virginie! Has he
not commanded armies? she thinks,--is he not eloquent in the senate?
and yet, what interest he has taken in her, a poor, unformed, ignorant
creature!--she never tried to improve herself till since she knew him.
And he is so considerate, too,--so respectful, so thoughtful and kind,
so manly and honorable, and has such a tender friendship for her, such
a brotherly and fatherly solicitude! and yet, if she is haughty or
imperious or severe, how humbled and grieved he looks! How strange that
she could have power over such a man!

It is one of the saddest truths of this sad mystery of life, that woman
is, often, never so much an angel as just the moment before she falls
into an unsounded depth of perdition. And what shall we say of the man
who leads her on as an experiment,--who amuses himself with taking
woman after woman up these dazzling, delusive heights, knowing, as he
certainly must, where they lead?

We have been told, in extenuation of the course of Aaron Burr, that he
was not a man of gross passions or of coarse indulgence, but, in the
most consummate and refined sense, _a man of gallantry_. This, then, is
the descriptive name which polite society has invented for the man who
does this thing!

Of old, it was thought that one who administered poison in the
sacramental bread and wine had touched the very height of impious
sacrilege; but this crime is white, by the side of his who poisons
God's eternal sacrament of love and destroys a woman's soul through her
noblest and purest affections.

We have given you the after-view of most of the actors of our little
scene to-night, and therefore it is but fair that you should have a peep
over the Colonel's shoulder, as he sums up the evening in a letter to a
friend.

"MY DEAR ----

"As to the business, it gets on rather slowly. L---- and S---- are away,
and the coalition cannot be formed without them; they set out a week ago
from Philadelphia, and are yet on the road.

"Meanwhile, we have some providential alleviations,--as, for example,
a wedding-party to-night, at the Wilcoxes', which was really quite an
affair. I saw the prettiest little Puritan there that I have set eyes on
for many a day. I really couldn't help getting up a flirtation with her,
although it was much like f